@UNC Baseball

[senoiajacket]

I’m good with the way we played today. Everyone but two players in the lineup had a hit. Pitching staff only gave up 4 walks. Busse had a decent inning. We had a chance to beat a team that has won 21 straight at home. I still think we get one this weekend if we continue with this type of solid play.

 

[Techcaster572]

Overall, I thought today was a well-played and hard fought game between two very good teams in the ACC.

Positives:
The bullpen
After Mason gave up 5 runs, the pen shutdown a very good offense holding them scoreless in the 5th, 6th, 7th, & 8th.
Great to see Busse out there again.
Brett Thomas a solid inning
Ben King seemed to demonstrate his old form
M. Kovala with another scoreless inning.

I'm not certain our offense gets a chance in the 9th with the bullpen the last few years. My guess is that game likely would've been 11-4 in years past. Big positive as this bullpen seems to be taking shape.

Love the fight our offense brings to the table. Keep on fighting till the very last out.

Not so positive:
Got to do better with RISP. This has been a problem almost the entire year.
I think they were 1 for 10 again today
Bases loaded in the 9th with no outs with only two runs.

Can't wait till the latter innings to get rolling in conference play vs early season games. Much tougher bullpens that we will face in conference play. Duke may have one of the best closers in the country.

Now we may have lost Giesler for the season but just think of our lineup with Giesler as cleanup behind Ellis and in front of Green. Beccheti is a nice transfer piece but imo just not a cleanup hitter.

I like Mason Patel as a starter because he keeps us in games but not certain Friday night starter is his place.

All in all, great start for the team to be 16-5 and 3-1 in the acc.

Need to win at least one to keep the momentum going from the nc state sweep. We have a very winnable series next weekend vs BC so if we can get one this weekend, I think we'll be just fine.

 

[THWG]

As others have said, disappointed with the loss but very happy with the way we played. Just couldn't get the big hit when we needed it.

 

[awbuzz]

Made it close in the 9th, just couldn't pull it off.

 

[MWBATL]

Losing 5-4 hurts, but it is MUCH better than prior years when it would have been 12-4 or something similar.

My only other comment is why did we burn 4 bullpen pitchers for tomorrow's game?

 

[GT33]

Losing 5-4 hurts, but it is MUCH better than prior years when it would have been 12-4 or something similar.

My only other comment is why did we burn 4 bullpen pitchers for tomorrow's game?

I never pitched in colege except an occasional batting practice, but nowadays does 1 inning pitched on Friday knock a relief pitcher out for the rest of the weekend?

 

[THWG]

Losing 5-4 hurts, but it is MUCH better than prior years when it would have been 12-4 or something similar.

My only other comment is why did we burn 4 bullpen pitchers for tomorrow's game?

None of them threw that many pitches so I imagine all of them will still be available this weekend. Especially Thomas, he only threw 9 pitches. Also, we didn't use Hill, McKee, Brown, or Jones so we still have guys fresh for tomorrow.

 

[YoungSting]

I never pitched in colege except an occasional batting practice, but nowadays does 1 inning pitched on Friday knock a relief pitcher out for the rest of the weekend?

These days it goes into pitch count. Most relievers should be ready to go the next day if they are kept below 25ish. I’d also it depends on who they faced. A manager would be much more obliged to bring a guy into a part of the lineup that didn’t face a reliever the day before.

 

[gtbeak]

Overall, I thought today was a well-played and hard fought game between two very good teams in the ACC.

Positives:
The bullpen
After Mason gave up 5 runs, the pen shutdown a very good offense holding them scoreless in the 5th, 6th, 7th, & 8th.
Great to see Busse out there again.
Brett Thomas a solid inning
Ben King seemed to demonstrate his old form
M. Kovala with another scoreless inning.

I'm not certain our offense gets a chance in the 9th with the bullpen the last few years. My guess is that game likely would've been 11-4 in years past. Big positive as this bullpen seems to be taking shape.

Love the fight our offense brings to the table. Keep on fighting till the very last out.

Not so positive:
Got to do better with RISP. This has been a problem almost the entire year.
I think they were 1 for 10 again today
Bases loaded in the 9th with no outs with only two runs.

Can't wait till the latter innings to get rolling in conference play vs early season games. Much tougher bullpens that we will face in conference play. Duke may have one of the best closers in the country.

Now we may have lost Giesler for the season but just think of our lineup with Giesler as cleanup behind Ellis and in front of Green. Beccheti is a nice transfer piece but imo just not a cleanup hitter.

I like Mason Patel as a starter because he keeps us in games but not certain Friday night starter is his place.

All in all, great start for the team to be 16-5 and 3-1 in the acc.

Need to win at least one to keep the momentum going from the nc state sweep. We have a very winnable series next weekend vs BC so if we can get one this weekend, I think we'll be just fine.

Agree with much of what you wrote. Bullpen performances like we have received this week will enable late inning comebacks, but agree it would be nice to score some runs early so that we don't have to worry about them.

I also agree with your take on having Becchetti as the 4-hole hitter. He would look good in the 7-spot, IMO. Now that we aren't on a long winning streak with the changed batting order maybe we can tinker with it a little. I suspect it will take another game like today before that happens. IMO, Cam Jones would look real nice in the lead-off spot getting on base in front of Burress and company. However, the fact that he will have a couple games a week where he pitches and we thus lose the DH spot for an inning or two may make it not such a good idea.

A few tidbits on Cam Jones (counting the Friday UGa game)...he has now reached base in all 22 games this season. That is a longer streak than anyone put together last season. He also now has a 19 game hitting streak, only 2 behind the longest streak last season (Kristian Campbell). Tres Gonzalez had a 23 game streak in 2022; those are the only two longer hitting streaks since I started tracking this in 2020.

 

[gtbeak]

These days it goes into pitch count. Most relievers should be ready to go the next day if they are kept below 25ish. I’d also it depends on who they faced. A manager would be much more obliged to bring a guy into a part of the lineup that didn’t face a reliever the day before.

Agree 100%. Avoid duplicating batters faced is key. It would be nice if we can avoid using anyone on back-to-back days, but in the right circumstance I could see them being used. Certainly the should be fine for Sunday. As THWG stated, for tomorrow we still have Hill, Jones, McKee, Brown, and Barfield. That should be plenty.

 

[GT33]

That should be plenty.

Now you did it.

 

[FittedJacket]

The broadcast steadily became more painful as the game went on. Two homer morons. May have to be a day when I listen to the radio while muting the tv.

 

[Techcaster572]

The broadcast steadily became more painful as the game went on. Two homer morons. May have to be a day when I listen to the radio while muting the tv.

This 100%.

Those guys were about as carowhina as it comes. I typically can handle listening to another broadcast network but their analyst was a joke.

 

[Techcaster572]

Agree with much of what you wrote. Bullpen performances like we have received this week will enable late inning comebacks, but agree it would be nice to score some runs early so that we don't have to worry about them.

I also agree with your take on having Becchetti as the 4-hole hitter. He would look good in the 7-spot, IMO. Now that we aren't on a long winning streak with the changed batting order maybe we can tinker with it a little. I suspect it will take another game like today before that happens. IMO, Cam Jones would look real nice in the lead-off spot getting on base in front of Burress and company. However, the fact that he will have a couple games a week where he pitches and we thus lose the DH spot for an inning or two may make it not such a good idea.

A few tidbits on Cam Jones (counting the Friday UGa game)...he has now reached base in all 22 games this season. That is a longer streak than anyone put together last season. He also now has a 19 game hitting streak, only 2 behind the longest streak last season (Kristian Campbell). Tres Gonzalez had a 23 game streak in 2022; those are the only two longer hitting streaks since I started tracking this in 2020.

Gtbeak

I like moving Cam up the lineup but he's got more power than Trey so I'd prefer to see him in the 2 hole jmo.

My lineup would be:
Trey
Jones
Burress
Ellis
Green
Beccheti
Parker
Zmarzlak
Kerce.

I truly hope that Giesler can make it back as that would be an even powerful lineup but it is good to see the future 3rd baseman come through as a freshman in Kerce.

BTW- We currently have the #4 recruiting class in the country. Now who knows how many of those guys make it to campus but recruiting has been crazy good the last 5 years.

Now i'm going to jump on my soapbox about rankings and rpi. We fought hard and competed against a team highly ranked in rpi (9) and #20 in the rankings and it helps us not a bit. BTW-game was on the road. 67 in rpi going in. 67 after the game.

Now how does florida stay top 10 and lose 9 games? Same thing with Auburn. I'm not saying Tech should be higher however we play back to back quality opponets and losing helps the above teams (Especially auburn since they are getting beat AT home to #1 Arkansas) but not us.

Ridiculous.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Losing 5-4 hurts, but it is MUCH better than prior years when it would have been 12-4 or something similar.

My only other comment is why did we burn 4 bullpen pitchers for tomorrow's game?

I love throwing so many relievers short amounts of time. Let's see if the guys can handle it since it would be a winning strategy post-season (if we make it). They should be able to go Sunday 100% and probably Saturday with limited pitches as others have said.

Game today 5 PM.

Baseball’s Game 2 vs. UNC Moved Back to 5 p.m.

Tech’s game on Saturday altered due to weather

ramblinwreck.com

 

[gtbeak]

Gtbeak

I like moving Cam up the lineup but he's got more power than Trey so I'd prefer to see him in the 2 hole jmo.

My lineup would be:
Trey
Jones
Burress
Ellis
Green
Beccheti
Parker
Zmarzlak
Kerce.

I truly hope that Giesler can make it back as that would be an even powerful lineup but it is good to see the future 3rd baseman come through as a freshman in Kerce.

BTW- We currently have the #4 recruiting class in the country. Now who knows how many of those guys make it to campus but recruiting has been crazy good the last 5 years.

Now i'm going to jump on my soapbox about rankings and rpi. We fought hard and competed against a team highly ranked in rpi (9) and #20 in the rankings and it helps us not a bit. BTW-game was on the road. 67 in rpi going in. 67 after the game.

Now how does florida stay top 10 and lose 9 games? Same thing with Auburn. I'm not saying Tech should be higher however we play back to back quality opponets and losing helps the above teams (Especially auburn since they are getting beat AT home to #1 Arkansas) but not us.

Ridiculous.

I'd be good with your lineup except that I'd flip Brosius and Zmarzlak.

Is it possible you looked at the RPI before it included yesterday's games? The RPI I see here ( https://www.warrennolan.com/baseball/2024/rpi-live ) doesn't show what you mention. It shows Florida down to 38 with a drop of 16 spots this week, it shows Auburn at 47 down 4 spots this week, and it shows us at 60 up 16 spots this week.

ETA: Or maybe the top 10 you mention for Florida and Auburn are the rankings. TBH, I mostly ignore rankings, they are very, very close to irrelevant. I know from listening to D1 Baseball podcasts that their rankings are based on how they believe the teams should be ranked based on their rosters, not based on their results. Over time if they are shown to be wrong by on-field results they will adjust, but their reaction time is slow by their own admission. The thinking is that anyone with Google can look at records and rank teams, so there is no value added by them doing that.

 

[gtbeak]

Interesting, I was looking a little more closely at the RPI sheets at Warren Nolan and it literally updated in front of my eyes. We are now at 65 instead of 60. No idea what happened there. However, I do see an error in the calculations...they are counting the Sunday game at Coolray as a home game for us and a road game for UGa. They get UGa's other neutral site game against Georgia Southern that was played in Augusta correct as a neutral site game, so they do acknowledge non-tournament neutral site games as a possibility. It looks like the NCAA site is doing the same, as they have us with 3 home losses and 1 road loss, where it should be only the two home losses to Northeastern and Cornell. My guess is that the issue arises around the fact that Coolray Field is labeled as being in Atlanta instead of Lawrenceville as it was last year.

 

[senoiajacket]

Well, that one got away from us. Actually, the runs they got in the seventh were on flares and bloops mostly. Not bad pitches, just weak contact and lucky placement. One ball hard down the line. The eight, well, not so much.

Let’s take one tomorrow!

 

[Buzz_404]

I predicted 0 wins for a reason. Every single time we have a really good weekend/week, we always crap the bed the next. Had the lead, blew it and then let UNC get out to a 6 run lead in the later innings. Just atrocious. Middle of the order is ice cold.

 

[bensaysitathome]

If our goal is .500 in conference play, we need to go 2-1 at home and 1-2 on the road, at a minimum. Our sweep last week put us ahead of the 8 ball, and salvaging the series tomorrow keeps us there.

You can't win them all, but I hope to see good baseball even in the losses.